


We've Got You

by bigsunglasses



Category: Leverage
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:43:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsunglasses/pseuds/bigsunglasses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first job sans Nate and Sophie doesn't go quite right, and Parker takes it badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We've Got You

The first and only thing she says after being pulled from the wreckage of the collapsed basement is “It was my fault.” 

Eliot and Hardison tell her to hush. _Everything's okay now. All the workers had already been sneaked out. Nobody noticed. The con's done. We've got you, Parker._

And because she's pale and staring at nothing and not sleeping, the next day they bust her out of the hospital and away from the police who'd really like some statements, and take her to the nearest safe house Hardison can whistle up. It's on a clifftop, for her, with a gym in the basement, for Eliot, and near a great pizza place, for Hardison.

She still says nothing. Doesn't look at the evening panorama of windy sea and sky beyond the windows, doesn't eat a slice of pizza, doesn't drink a drop of Eliot's best hot chocolate recipe. Just curls up in one corner of the king-size bed in a bundle of sheets and duvet. Eyes shut. Body tight as a bowstring.

Even Hardison has lost his appetite for the pizza. He and Eliot retreat to the kitchen with beers for an emergency debate about whether to call Sophie. “She's _ours_ ,” says Eliot. “We should be able to figure this out.”

“Yeah, but Sophie knows the feelings stuff best.”

Eliot spins an empty bottle restlessly between his fingers. “She and Nate have only been gone a week. It doesn't... Dammit, Hardison, what did Parker _mean_? “It was my fault”, she said. I don't get it. She didn't set the damn bomb - ”

The memory of sitting in their surveillance van, relaxing in the con's final moments, then seeing the building explode with Parker inside … His mouth feels stuffed full of pain and he can't speak.

“Maybe she thinks she could have stopped the bomb,” offers Hardison. He looks quite ill with memory too. The world had slowed around them, like the worst kind of dream, as they'd fought with van doors and their feet to run towards the danger.

Eliot sets his jaw. “She was grifting as a secretary. She didn't have any equipment on her.”

And suddenly Hardison is up, and heading for the bedroom. “We have to talk to her,” he says desperately. “Whatever it is, it's not good for her to keep it inside.”

Upstairs, they crawl into bed and frame her in their embrace (gently, not pressing her bandages), although she's so far towards the edge that Eliot's nearly falling off. “You're cold, babe,” Hardison says anxiously.

She presses her forehead into his shoulder. It's the first signal she's given at all, and is so child-like that Eliot, drawing on some old, old memories, is moved to sing. His voice is a little rough at first with emotion, but he's picked an old country tune that Hardison knows too, and after several repetitions Parker's body suddenly buckles into looseness between them and she begins to cry. They hug her tighter, and Hardison's crying a bit too and mumbling things into her ear about how much he loves her.

“No! No! You don't understand. It was my fault. He saw through me,” she chokes, in bits and pieces around her tears. “He knew my accent wasn't right. He figured out it was a false identity. So he set the bomb.”

Hardison and Eliot lock eyes over her head. They'd both helped her work on that British accent. “Uh, babe, don't take all that onto yourself - ”

“We were going to get that building back for the Constanzas, and now there's nothing for them but rubble.” With an athletic flail, Parker is out of the bed, stumbling briefly on a loose bit of sheet. She paces frantically around the bedroom. “I failed. Our first con as a team of three, and I planned it, and I failed us!”

Sitting up, Hardison ticks off points on his hand. “We got the illegal workers out, we got the police on the tail of Jack Bradrick, we got the Constanzas their paperwork and proof of ownership back. They'll be able to rebuild, in the end. I call that a win.”

But Eliot can see she isn't listening. He gets out of bed, gets her in a gentle headlock, and returns her to bed. “Parker, it's all of our faults. Maybe your accent could have been better. But damn it, Hardison's surveillance should have noticed Bradrick setting the bomb, and I should have come to get you when you were five minutes late. Remember our first job with Nate? Didn't go perfectly, did it?”

She presses her hands to her eyes. “Once we had Sophie it worked,” she whispers. “Sophie knows how to grift.”

“So do you. And you know how to survive.” Eliot and Hardison wrestle her into a sandwich-embrace again, tucking the duvet over them all for warmth. “Bright Parker, going into the basement when you heard the ticking.”

“Clever Parker, for not panicking and disturbing the rubble,” says Hardison, shivering suddenly with sympathetic claustrophobia.

She's crying again, but differently now, and mumbles something indistinct. “Huh?” they ask simultaneously.

“You don't mind … having … just me?”

“Having you is _the best ever_ ,” says Hardison. 

“What he said,” says Eliot gruffly. “We wouldn't swap you for a thousand Sophies, okay.”

“And we are so, so, so glad you're alive.”

She is pliant in their hold now, and they all squeeze closer, until there's nothing between body and body and body: she's so slight that Eliot and Hardison can practically hug each other around her. In a huddle of warmth and love, they all drift off to sleep: first the hacker, then the hitter, and finally the world's newest mastermind.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt "secret identity discovered" on my hc_bingo card (http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com).
> 
> Thanks to somebraveapollo for a quick beta!


End file.
